California State University Bakersfield

Department of Physics and Engineering

Materials Engineering Laboratory

Facilities and equipment

The Materials Engineering Laboratory is located in the new Engineering Complex Building.
This building was inaugurated during the 2012-2013 academic year.

The Materials Engineering Laboratory contains the following equipment:

Chemical Reactor
This glass reactor has a chiller for the condenser and a vacuum pump with control .It is used
to synthesize polymers. The reactor has a heating mantle with capability up to 300 °C. The vacuum
pump is useful for the efficient removal of water produced during the synthesis. The reactor was
purchased from Columbia International Company.

Contact Angle Instrument
This instrument was procured from the Department of Energy through its Laboratory Equipment Donation
Program (LEPD). The VCA Optima instrument from AST products is capable of measuring the surface tension and
the contact angle of liquids and solid surfaces.

Torsion Testing Instrument
This instrument was purchased from Tecquipment. It is used to peform torsion test in metallic samples.

Creep Testing Instrument
This instrument was purchased from Tecquipment. It is used to perform creep tests on polymeric and lead materials.

Fatigue Testing Instrument
This instrument is used to perform fatigue testing in metallic samples. Acquired from Tecquipment.

Impact Testing Instrument
The impact testing equipment from Qualitest is used to test plastic specimens in Charpy or Izod configuration.
It can be configured for 3, 6 or 9 J of impact energy.

Rheometer
This instrument was procured from the Department of Energy through its Laboratory Equipment Donation
Program (LEPD).It is a Brookfield Engineering RS Rheometer and it is used to measure the rheological properties
fluids, polymer solutions, and soft solids.

Strain Gauge Trainer
This isntrument from Tecquipment is used to teach the fundamentals of stress-strain behavior in different settings such as
torsion, tension, and bending. The students are also able to learn about some of the properties of materials such as Young's modulus.

Universal Testing Machine
Universal Testing Machine from Instron. It can perform tensile, compression, and three point bending testing.
The cell capacity is rated at 50 KN.

Polarized Light Microscope
This polarized microscope is used to visually identify the microscopic structures in metallurgical samples.

Plotter
This plotter was donated by Dave Williams from Industrial Design and Construction. It is used by the students to print their designs in the class of introduction to AutoCAD.

The laboratory also has a chemical fume hood, vacuum oven, and a furnace.